Expert Corner: A Nurse's Take on Aloe for Skin

By: Crystal Herrington

Image via @savoringhealth on Instagram. Crystal is a RN at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center. Check out her website where she touches on all things holistic, science-backed, and plant-powered recipes here.

When I was a child, after a long day out on the water or at the pool I would come home with slightly reddened skin and warmth from the sun that emanated from me. My mom would take a bottle of clear aloe gel out of the refrigerator and slather the cool substance all over my shoulders and face. I still love that feeling to this day.

The instant cooling and healing effect of aloe is recognized by alternative and Western medicine worldwide and has been for thousands of years. On my unit at the hospital, we slather an aloe vera product on the skin of vulnerable patients to use as a barrier between their skin and substances that may be caustic to them. We put it over wounds to catalyze healing, and we put it on burns to soothe pain and speed up skin regeneration.

Aloe is a true gift from the plant world and ANSHI is using this plant to change people's lives in the best way!

As a nurse, I am required by policy to either use hand sanitizer or wash my hands each time I enter and leave a patient's room. More often than not, all I have time to do is pump the hand sanitizer. Over time, this can be very taxing on my skin, especially since the FDA only just recently banned 28 chemicals from being used in hand sanitizers. This is good news, but even still, 3 major chemicals known to be toxic are allowed as ingredients. Research shows that toxins applied to our skin can be absorbed into our bodies in the same way as toxins that are ingested. ANSHI nailed these rubs by leaving out all preservatives and chemicals. They use only 5 wholesome base ingredients you can feel good about putting on your skin.

I rub on ANSHI Aloe when I come home from work (and even throughout the day!) because I know the natural ingredients are doing restorative and preventative work on my epidermis! Aloe is proven to reduce redness and inflammation on the skin because of all of the beautiful anti-inflammatory properties that it has naturally.

Aloe vera is 99% water; the other 1% is full of beneficial antioxidants and vitamins such as vitamin E, A, C, B12, and folic acid that are rapidly absorbed through our skin into our bloodstream for immediate relief. ANSHI knew this when they designed their product, which is why they add pink Himalayan salt to their rubs. This provides an exfoliating effect, which removes layers of dead skin, allowing the vitamins and antioxidants from aloe to be most efficiently absorbed.

If you are like me and work at the hospital bedside, or just need a skin healing rub that you can trust to have the purest ingredients, give ANSHI’s healing rubs a shot!